As the price of healthcare services increase, and as patients bear a larger portion of those costs, increasing strain is placed on the healthcare system. Patients delay or avoid medically necessary procedures for fear of going into debt, and healthcare providers are increasingly holding onto larger accounts receivable for longer periods of time, as patients and their insurance providers delay in making payments for procedures, or even default on payments for procedures. This places a strain on the healthcare system, in which healthcare providers must weigh the likelihood of receiving compensation for a given procedure against the benefit for the patient. Healthcare providers already use various computer systems to attempt to mitigate these risks, but these systems are limited in their speed and accuracy, which can lead the healthcare provider to limit which treatment options it makes available to patients due to perceived financial pressures, even when the patient is otherwise capable of paying for the unoffered procedures.
Currently, when patients seek healthcare services from healthcare providers, the computer systems of the healthcare providers (or their agents) perform various processes to provide healthcare services, and to bill for those services. These processes may include finding patients' healthcare coverage, verifying patient demographic data, determining a patient financial history (including checking payor compliance), estimating a charge for a procedure, and collecting payment for healthcare services, which are performed by separate systems. As will be appreciated, if the speed or accuracy at which individual systems perform these processes were to be improved, or the capabilities of these individual systems were to be expanded, the overall system itself and the quality of care available to patients would be improved.